Labor trafficking a trap

To the Editor:
Being desperately poor when offered a good-paying job in the United States lures many individuals into a trap. This trap is labor trafficking. Labor trafficking is defined in the United States by the Trafficking Victims Pro­tection Act of 2000. “The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, or debt bondage or slavery.”
According to info@polaris
project.org, numerous industries in the United States have laborers trapped as domestic servants, farm workers or factory workers. These workers have been reported in restaurants, the hospitality industry, construction work and carnivals.
Customer demands for consumer goods and food products grown in or imported to the United States create the market. For example, The Des Moines Register reported Nov. 24, 2015, that “Nestle SA launched an investigation in December 2014 after reports from news outlets and nongovernmental organizations tied brutal and largely unregulated working conditions to their shrimp, prawns and Purina-brand pet foods.” Nestle SA confirmed labor abuse among its Thai seafood suppliers.
Stop the demand:
• While scheduling hotel or motel res­er­vations ask if the business adheres to policies to prevent labor trafficking. Go to http://tinyurl.com/j3ucj4u or www.ecpatusa.org .
• Require companies to certify there is no slavery in the supply chain as Nestle SA discovered.
• Information is available at http://tinyurl.com/z2nqrh4, http://tinyurl.com/zzv675w and http://tinyurl.com/chfzbvj.
Nora Dvorak
Attacking Trafficking
Davenport

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